The state finals for the Dilmah High Tea Challenge are over and I didn’t win the gold medal. A wonderful contestant who’s entered in previous challenges won that and deservedly so. Everyone raved about her presentation. This year all the contestants were judged according to WACS (World Association of Chefs Societies) on a professional level. I was pretty sure I was in trouble.

Every finalist had 2 identical tables — one for prep work and the other for presentation to the judges. We had to provide everything from the cutlery to the food. I quickly unwrapped all the china and got out the linens and realised that the napkins were missing – oh well.

Next were introductory speeches from Dilhan Fernando the son of the Dilmah founder, Merrill Fernando, Black Hat chef Bernd Uber and Robert Shinkel, Dilmah’s tea sommelier and mixologist from Amsterdam. Robert won the 2009 Dilmah Tea Sommelier competition.

First, contestant one did her presentation while the rest of us went to a special green room to pace back and forth. I was number two so I didn’t have long to wait. When I was called I dashed to warm my bread pudding and get ice for the ice tea before the judges sat down.

My assistant on the day was May King Tsang from www.maykingtea.com, the only tea speaker certified by the Australian Specialty Tea Institute. Why May King? She knew tea and I didn’t, plus she was hosting a charity high tea. I knew I needed her advice and she kindly offered to help. Our assistants could help us set up and offer moral support but when it was time – it was only me and those 3 men.

After introducing myself to the judges, I began by telling them that I’d never entered a food contest before and I had never been to a high tea until the previous Sunday so the theme of my high tea was “Yank in Oz” because the only high teas I’d ever seen were in books, TV or in the movies. They laughed. More importantly, they talked to me the whole time. It was a very pleasant experience. I’ll admit that I did ask that if they hated everything not to make me cry. Not to worry, they said, they never did that.

The word on the net was, the judges didn’t say much during the presentations, it was all strictly business. Thankfully that’s not how it was for me. I figured I had nothing to lose and wasn’t going to win anything anyway. I just decided these were three interesting men I was serving snacks to.

I needed to brew tea first so I rinsed my pot and made the tea. 3 minutes is a long time when you’re watching the clock!

I served some tarts with caramelised onions and goats cheese in a quiche batter. Chef Uber said he didn’t enjoy chevre but the onions really cut through the cheese and he liked the tarts. Win.

Then I served finger sandwiches of ocean trout, dill and cucumber ribbons on a bed of horseradish cream cheese with a dash of tabasco. I explained that I’d interviewed Tetsuya Wakuda at the Noosa Food and Wine festival and he’d convinced me about ocean trout. The chef said, “In this job I eat a lot of sandwiches and I could have lived without another until I took the first bite. That horseradish and tabasco were delightful.” Win.

Next came a tea pairing and I told them every American drinks iced tea so that’s what I prepared. I used the Dilmah Berry Sensation tea and added some Earl Grey and served it with lavender shortbread. This was well received but the ice had melted so I lost points for that. The trick apparently is to make ice from tea. (I doubt it would have survived the trip from the Sunshine Coast) I will remember this the next time I serve ice tea to guests.

Finally I served my white chocolate bread pudding made with brioche and cream infused with Dilmah Rose and French Vanilla tea. It was a hit with the Dilhan. The buzzer went off indicating the end of the presentation but they kept eating and talking! I was stoked.

Then I was supposed to get 5 minutes of criticism and they were: no napkins – I’d left the fancy neatly pressed matching napkins in the car and John was off in Logan getting his driver’s license renewed, my tarts could have been bigger and the ice tea should have been made stronger to overcome the ice melting. Otherwise they loved everything and my tea matching was spot on.

I was very happy with it and was told to stand around to wait for the photographer. I had to make a complete place setting for a photographer so she could photograph me and all the dishes I served. They’ll make a cookbook out of some of their favourites.

After the pictures I began cleaning up and doing my dishes and repacking everything while the last couple of presentations were going on. The judges took about 10 minutes to make their decisions and during that time I was interviewed on camera for a video Dilmah will put online at some point — or I could end up on the cutting room floor.

Now I should have said that last Saturday my photo was in our local newspaper along with a story that I was in the finals of the high tea challenge. Another woman from Noosaville was also interviewed and she said she was convinced she was going to win. What a load off my mind. I could be happy that someone local was the winner.

Maybe her confidence was just what I needed not to care about the outcome so I simply imagined that these men were at my place for tea. I served, I chatted and I had fun.

We were all called together and got the speeches about how wonderful we all were to join in the contest, etc. etc. and they talked about the certificates of merit and then announed the bronze medals – one to the woman in Noosaville. (She told me later that they didn’t like her prawn cocktail because it was too difficult to eat at a high tea. It was striking on the plate though.)

I didn’t get called up for a bronze medal but I still wasn’t concerned because I didn’t think I’d done enough to merit even a certificate. But… I got the silver medal. Nobody was more surprised than I!

I don’t know if I’ll enter next year but it was a great experience. If I do I’ll remember napkins and I’ll make sure my dishes are all the same size and I’ll wear flat shoes! This is my lavender shortbread.